


And Achilles cried, "My Sweet Patroclus"

by sweetNsimple



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Episode Fix-It: s02e13 Mizumono, Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Explicit Language, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Happy Murder Family, Implied Sexual Content, Jack Crawford has a bad day, M/M, Murder Family, No murder, Patroclus and Achilles - Freeform, Will Graham Has a Nice Day, Will Graham Helps Himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:18:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: Hannibal was quiet as he slowly took a drink from his wine.  “Tell the truth, then.  And all its consequences.”  How he looked down and away as he returned the wine to the table was telling.The revelation within Will took form and a name.  Hannibal was begging.  But what could make the great and powerful, the psychopathic and narcissistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter, beg?‘He knows,’ Will realized with a sense of resignation.  A sense of relief.





	And Achilles cried, "My Sweet Patroclus"

“Do you know what an imago is, Will?” Hannibal asked.

“It’s a flying insect.”

“It’s the last stage of transformation.”

“When you become who you will be?”

Hannibal acquiesced to this and supplemented.  “It’s also a term from the dead religion of psychoanalysis.  An imago is image of a loved one, buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives.”

“An ideal,” Will breathed, staring into the rib cage of the centerpiece.  The table arrangements today were more Lovecraftian than usual.  Hannibal himself was somber, quieter than Will had expected him to be on the cusp of murdering Jack Crawford.  Something was not quite right.

“The concept of an ideal…”  Hannibal cocked his head and took a moment to conceive of his next words, an almost _hesitation_.  “I have a concept of you, just as you have a concept of me.”

“Neither of us ideal,” Will said, not daring to look at Hannibal.

Hannibal looked away as well.  “Both of us are too curious about too many things for any ideals…  Is it ideal that Jack die?”

The question was unexpected enough that Will turned his eyes on Hannibal.  Hannibal was… reluctant to kill Jack?  In a world where normal people were pigs in the eyes of the doctor, when discourtesy was unbearably disgusting and worthy of murder – _free-range rude_ , Will had teased, and Hannibal had almost laughed, – did Hannibal really not want to be rid of the person who was detrimental to his continued freedom? 

Will managed to say, “It’s necessary,” and felt the words burn on his tongue.  _‘It might turn out to be honestly so,’_ he thought bitterly.  “What happens to Jack has been preordained.”  _‘By who?’_ whispered the monster inside.  _‘By you?’_

Hannibal watched his sip his wine.  “We could disappear now,” he offered into the heavy gloom of the dining room.  “Tonight,” and his throat bobbed.  As if he was nervous.  Uncertain.  _Desperate_. 

Inside of Will grew a revelation.  He studied this Hannibal that was, in fact, _retreating_.  Retreating from the risk of taking on Jack.  But why? 

“Feed your dogs, leave a note for Alana, and never see her or Jack again.  Almost polite.”  He was looking into Will, and Will felt that everything in him was reaching back.  Hannibal was offering an out, an escape for both of them.  No one had to be hurt and no one had to be at risk. 

Will swallowed thickly and tried to stop this.  He told himself, _No_.  He said, “Then this would be our last supper.”  He tried to smile, tried to laugh, tried to imply, _Our last supper should be more special_.  But he could not hold the expression and turned away.

Hannibal saw through him.  “Of this life.”  He glanced at the food spread out across the table.  “We’ll serve lamb.”

“Sacrificial,” Will muttered. 

“I don’t need a sacrifice,” Hannibal rebuked instantly.  Hannibal sighed softly and asked, “Do you?”

“I need him to know,” Will tried.  He put real feeling into it.  “If I confess to Jack Crawford right now…”

Hannibal was almost fondly looking upon him.  “I would forgive you.” 

As if Hannibal had taken his special set of knives from the kitchen and pushed them all through Will’s chest, Will felt grave, sharp pains of shame.  _‘Please don’t forgive me,’_ he thought.  _‘You’ll regret it later.’_

Wasn’t that ironic, that he felt as if he could not be forgiven by the man who had destroyed him and remade him in shadows?  Wasn’t it terrible, that he felt he wanted Hannibal’s forgiveness for what had to be done?  _‘Does it have to be done?’_

“If Jack were to tell you all is forgiven, would you accept his forgiveness?”

The pain morphed into a fire.  He didn’t _want_ Jack’s forgiveness.  He had nothing to apologize for when it came to Jack.  Will tried to smother the venomous thoughts before they showed on his face and hissed, instead, “Jack isn’t _offering_ forgiveness.  He wants… justice.  He wants to see you… see who you are.”  With a sense of horror, he realized, “See what I’ve become.”  And it was true.  Jack didn’t trust Will to be his man.  “He wants the truth,” he said, looking into Hannibal’s dark scrutiny.  In the string of lies he had told, this was total honesty.

Hannibal was quiet as he slowly took a drink from his wine.  “Tell the truth, then.  And all its consequences.”  How he looked down and away as he returned the wine to the table was telling. 

The revelation within Will took form and a name.  Hannibal was _begging_.  But what could make the great and powerful, the psychopathic and narcissistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter, _beg_?

Days ago, Hannibal had said to Will during one of their sessions that they were just alike.  _“This gives you the capacity to deceive me… and to be deceived by me,”_ Hannibal had said.

 _‘He knows,’_ Will realized with a sense of resignation.  A sense of _relief_.

The more he had worked with Hannibal – the more he had worked _on_ Hannibal, lying to him, teasing him, _seducing_ him, – the more he had recognized the danger of being the lure.  The lure was not safely on land, holding the fishing pole, ready to heave a struggling prize from the deep, unseen depths below the ice.  The lure was the one cast into the frigid waters, at the mercy of the fish.  It was better to be a lure than live bait, to be certain, but the fish did not approach the lure to play.  No, the fish meant to _devour_ , and was enraged when, instead, it was dragged from the darkness into the light.

Will had become comfortable.  Comfortable with the enemy inside that he shared with Hannibal, comfortable in his own skin.  He enjoyed the grim humor, the private jokes he shared with Hannibal.  He liked that they had something in common that no one else could understand, could _interfere_ with.  He felt elevated by Hannibal, as if he had evolved past what he had been.  He had grown more powerful under Hannibal’s guidance, and had changed irrevocably.  _“You are waking up to who you are, that is all you need to understand,”_ Hannibal had said in response to the nature of dreams and the surreal. 

What Will understood was that he needed Hannibal.  He had teased Hannibal about codependency in the past, and had now fostered it once more between himself and the monster of a man.  Hannibal was a psychopath, and the danger of being a psychopath was needing an audience to witness his macabre art.  Yet this went beyond that danger of wanting _recognition_.  Hannibal did not hunger for the infamy that would come from having toyed with the FBI’s finest and escaping unscathed – he hungered for _Will_.  

 _“You don’t want me to have anything in my life that’s not you,”_ Will had one revealed.  _“We are just alike,”_ Will had said.  _“We are both alone without each other.”_  It was true. 

 _“When the moment comes, will you do what needs to be done?”_ Hannibal and Jack had asked.

This was the moment.  Not the moment both Hannibal and Jack had planned for, but _the_ moment for Will.

He looked Hannibal in the eye.  “The truth is that Jack and I conspired to trap you together.  Here, tomorrow night.  We planned to catch you in the act and have you arrested.” 

“So, you admit it,” Hannibal said, his face carved from stone.  “You meant to betray me to Jack and take my life.”

“No, not your life…”

“My freedom, then.”

“Jack thinks that I’m his,” Will hissed.  “His man, his lure.  But you’ve already caught me.  You have _devoured me whole_.” 

“If you are the lure and I the fish in this particular scenario, then Jack must be the fisherman.  A line still connects us to him.  How do you suppose we cut it?”

“Murder me,” Will said.  “Here, tonight.  I’m sure you can stage a murder.”

Something like surprise flashed across Hannibal’s face before he smoothed it out. 

“You’ve staged them before,” Will guessed.  “Not just planted evidence, but made it seem as if a murder had been committed when none had been…”  He thought of teacups and coming back together again.  Will slumped back in his seat, gasping for breath.  “Abigail’s not dead.  You didn’t murder her.” 

“It was meant to be a surprise,” Hannibal admitted quietly.  “You have both missed each other a great deal.”

Will sobbed.  “She’s _alive_.  Why didn’t you _lead_ with that?”

“I want you to leave with me for me – not because I have with me a child you have formed a paternal bond with.”

“You want me to leave with you… because you’re in love with me.”

Hannibal did not shy away from the confession.  “As much as I can be.”

“We spoke of Patroclus and Achilles once.  As friendship.”

“I did.”

“An avid historian and reader such as yourself must have also read Plato’s _Symposium_ on the true love between Achilles and Patroclus.”

Hannibal smiled at the table.  “In the play _Myrmidones_ , Achilles lamented over the corpse of Patroclus, demanding to know of his dearly departed lover if his worship of Patroclus’s thighs and his many kisses meant so little to Patroclus that he would leave Achilles alone.”

“Not very subtle, Hannibal, likening us to two lovers.”

“I was not attempting to be subtle.  I was, in fact, baring my soul to you.  Imagine my heartbreak when I smelled Freddie Lounds upon you, not dead as I had been led to believe.”

“I know where she is,” Will offered, and silence followed.  “If you want her truly dead, if she has been so unbearable rude as to garner your intentions, I can give her to you.”  He glanced at Hannibal from underneath his eyelashes.  “An apology.”

“Forgive me if I do not trust this to be another trap.”

“I understand your hesitation.”  He sipped his wine.  He felt jittery, uncertain.  Balancing on a thin wire that was slowly cutting into him.  He felt set free by the truth. 

“Run away with me tonight.  No Jack Crawford or Freddie Lounds as sacrificial lambs.  Let me show you Europe, the most beautiful attractions and timeless scenes.  We will have Abigail.  We will have each other.  Together, we can do anything.”

“Only divine intervention could bring down Patroclus and Achilles,” Will reminisced. 

Hannibal cradled the stem of his wine glass.  “You know of my deep affections for you.  What of you for me?”

The younger man gave this its due consideration.  “I find myself caught in a storm to which there is no haven from you.  The winds throw me in every direction and the rain becomes waves that push me under until I do not know which way is up.  Your voice is the thunder that roars louder than all thought and your _presence_ in my life, the lightning that I see by, even as I drown in you.  I want to kill you.  I want to keep you safe.  You’re mine and I am yours.”  Will speculated his dish.  “What I feel cannot quite by quantified as love, but as an all-encompassing need.  Approaching obsession and passion, you have become the most important person in my life.”

“Could you see yourself in love with me?”

“Perhaps.  Someday.  Maybe soon.”

“Could you see us as lovers?”

Will’s breath stuttered.  It was all too easy to imagine, as it was all too easy to imagine slicing open Hannibal’s throat.  He saw himself on this very dining table, the centerpiece of which Hannibal gave all his attention.  Himself naked, he could envision Hannibal between his thighs as Achilles must have once been between Patroclus’s, leaving his mark on Will’s unblemished flesh in worship.  He could all too readily imagine Hannibal bared above him, pushing down onto him.  He could feel their bodies sliding against one another, slick with sweat and need.  He could almost _taste_ Hannibal as they kissed, dark and woodsy like the wine they drank, a hint of rust like blood, an aroma of spices from their meal. 

The fantasy playing in his head, he turned dark eyes on Hannibal, who took a deep, fortifying breath in turn.  “Oh, yes,” Will purred.  “All too easily.”

“What do you see?” Hannibal purred in turn.

“Us.  On this table.  I, your centerpiece, that you grace with mouth and hands.  Marking me.”

“In this fantasy, it appears you have given yourself a submissive role,” Hannibal said in a voice that was just a tad strangled.  It filled Will with pride and he gave Hannibal a mighty smug grin.  Hannibal’s eyes narrowed in insult.  “Do you see yourself as submissive to me, Will?”

“I see myself as the conductor to our orchestra,” he teased, and he nipped at Hannibal’s pride with sharp and playful teeth.  “The passion of your music is directed at my behest.  I am not submissive so much as that I am… choosing how to give myself to you.”  

“You are in control of me, and in your control of me, you are benevolent and merciful in giving me what I desire.” 

“Is that what you desire, Dr. Lecter?”  His voice had dropped several octaves.  “How often have you seen me on your dinner table?  A meal that you can devour over and over again, to the melody of my pleasure.”

Will watched with avid interest as Hannibal’s throat bobbed once more and the doctor’s hands trembled as he reached for his wine glass. 

Just a slight tremble.  A little twitch.  Telling enough. 

“You suggested that I murder you to cut the line that connects us to Jack Crawford.  This would alleviate you of guilt in the eyes of the FBI and the world, as my last victim in the United States.”

“They wouldn’t be able to use me against you if they believe I’m dead.”

“They would not be able to use you if they believe you cannot be swayed.  As my equal and lover, I hesitate to be known as your murderer.”

Will felt his blood running through his veins, hot and feverish.  “You have a plan?”

“You managed to record Freddie Lounds screaming and then sent it to Jack.”

“That… actually did happen.  Freddie, at that time, believed that I was going to kill her.”

“Let’s leave no doubt this time.  I want us to record a message for Jack Crawford and then send it to him when we are safely out of the States.”

Hannibal stood and began relieving the table of its dishes.  He moved, as if considering putting them away in the kitchen, and then did no such thing.  Tilting his head to the side in consideration, he allowed the leftovers on his plate to tip and fall to the floor, followed by the plate itself.  It shattered on impact. 

“Yes, this will do,” Hannibal murmured.

“Is this going to be a crime scene?”

“For a crime of passion, yes.” 

“Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” Will breathed, face splitting in a smile.  “Are you going to ravish me on your dining room table?”

“And I am going to record the sounds you make, your voice as you cry out my name in unmistakable rapture, and send it to Jack Crawford.”

“That is very forward of you.”

“There are advantages to having the FBI believe that you are dead.  However, like Achilles, I would rather have the world know that you live and breathe at my side, my lover and companion in war.”  He tipped another plate onto the floor.

Enjoying this game, Will pulled the rib cage centerpiece toward him and then nudged it off the table.

“Would you do this for me, Will?” Hannibal asked.

“That very much depends,” Will said, swirling the last drops of wine about in his glass.  Empty of liquid, he let it slip from his hand.  One eyebrow raised saucily, his expression was holier-than-though and pleased as he leered up at Hannibal.  “Would you happen to have any lubricant?  My _dear_ Hannibal?”

~::~

 _“H-Hanni-_ fuck _, Hannibal…”_

_“Tell me, Will, what would you like next?”_

_“Your mouth has gotten me in a great deal of t-trouble in the past…”_ Ragged breathing echoed.  _“What_ good _can it do?”_

 _“Allow me to demonstrate.”_   The sound of fellatio was distressingly unmistakable. 

Kade Prurnell was unmoving as she and Jack Crawford listened to the voice messages sent to Jack earlier yesterday morning.  Jack himself had his face in his hands, and felt a fool. 

 _“May I, my darling boy?  May I join us?”_ Hannibal’s voice fucking _pleaded_. 

_“Make us one, Hannibal.  Make us not alone.”_

“Would you like me to tell you the worst part about this, Crawford?” Kade asked in a deceptively soft voice.  “The fact that Dr. Lecter is having kinky sex on his dining room table does not equate to him being the Chesapeake ripper.  The food you had your lab take samples of, that was all over the floor?  _Pork_.  Your claims of cannibalism are unfounded.  You now have porn and no evidence that Hannibal has committed any crime expect aiding and abetting a possible felon.  Will Graham, _who we know murdered Randall Tier_ , is now _gone_.”

Jack had no rebuke. 

Having been sent to his phone, there was not one long recording, but one recording chopped up into several smaller ones that were sent in sequential order.  Jack had missed the first four calls and, by the time he had listened to them in abject terror and disgust, seven more had made their way into his voicemail.  For the sake of investigation, he had listened to every one of them, hopeful – as terrible and sick as it sounded – that Will was not a consenting member to this dark union.  As he had listened, he had been driving to Hannibal’s home, believing that he could save the young man. 

It was not until he had gotten there that he realized the messages had been sent after the deed had been done.

Calling the FBI to investigate a scene where the only crime that had been committed was _passion_ had been a mortifying and career-ending act, but Jack had done it anyway in the hopes of finding anything.  Even blood – even _Will’s_ blood.  He had hoped for proof of a struggle, of critical wounds, of murder, even. 

Anything to dispel the reality of Will’s betrayal and abandonment.  Had Will ever actually been on Jack’s side?  Who had Will been playing?  Jack or Hannibal?  Will had said that he would bait Hannibal, but it was Jack at the end of a fishing line, being reeled in to his doom. 

All the investigators had found was a mess of food on the floor and traces of lubricant and semen on the table. 

“They’re taunting me,” Jack confided in Kade after the last recording played to its end, a litany of Will’s gasping breaths and Hannibal’s besotted croon of, _“My darling Will…”_.  “What reason would they have of sending me this and then leaving without a trace if they weren’t guilty of something?”

“ _Will_ is guilty of murder.  He was acquitted of prior murders, it is still possible he committed those as well.  For all we know, Dr. Lecter is the fool charmed by the advances of a young, handsome man who played mental instability in order to gain sympathy and affection from the psychologist.  Dr. Lecter is in more danger, having Will with him, then the other way around.” 

“Who _played_ mental instability?  There are scans of his brain when he had encephalitis.  He wasn’t playing at anything.  Dr. Lecter would have recognized the signs, he was a surgeon, but he purposely ignored or misinterpreted Will’s symptoms.”

“You have no proof of any of that.”  Kade’s jaw was clenched tight.  “I understand that your wife is very ill, so you feel a need to be in control of something.  However, you have gone too far.  I am putting you on bereavement leave.”  She sighed and suddenly seemed so sad for Jack.  “You were too close to see who the real monster was.”

“Yeah,” Jack said to himself after she had swept from the room.  “I guess I was.”

~::~

Will stood in the stream.  The trees whispered in the soft breeze and the water gurgled and clapped over rocks and under logs. 

He was not fishing – not yet – but, instead, smiling with pride as Abigail cast her line.  “You’ve gotten better,” he said.

“Yeah, well…”  She smiled back at him.  “As it turns out, I take better to fishing than hunting.  This is… fun.  Peaceful.”  She turned her head to cast a mischievous look toward the bank.  “It’s so sad to think that some people don’t like wading in the stream,” she yelled.

“I am quite content where I am, thank you,” Hannibal called back.  He had reclined against one of the many trees, a blanket spread out below him and a sketch book in his lap.  “You will lure the fish and I will cook them.  This is a balance of work.  I do not need to go into the water.”

“Yeah,” Will called, “but you _could_.”

“This is your stream, my darling Will,” Hannibal said to him.  A note of adoration had escaped and colored the afternoon rosy.  “I am here merely for the benefit of your superior company.”

“Notice that _my_ company goes unmentioned,” Abigail muttered to Will with a roll of her eyes.  “I am _inconsequential_.  Practically intruding on your date.”

“Practically,” Will mimicked, amused.

“I think we can admit that this would be a pretty crappy date without me.”

“I heard that, Abigail.”

“Maybe you were _meant_ to,” Abigail called back.  “It’s hard to be a good boyfriend from thirty feet away.” 

“Will and I are not _boys_ and we are far more than _friends_.”

“I’m closer to your _better half_ than you are.” 

“Children, children,” Will soothed with a laugh.  “You’re both pretty, there’s no reason to fight.”  He looked fondly from Abigail to his lover.  “I wouldn’t change this moment for anything.”  When Abigail and Hannibal looked smugly at one another, he felt obligated to add, “ _All company included_.”

Will cast his line and basked in the quiet of the stream. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For more information on Achilles and Patroclus, I went to this website: http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/randomstuff/achilles2.html   
> “Achilles wished that all Greeks would die, so that he and Patroclus could conquer Troy alone. Took divine intervention to bring them down.” ~ Hannibal from Hannibal, season 2, episode Mizumono.


End file.
